NBA Game Preview - New York at Indiana

Sat Feb 1, 2020 7:00 PM EST

The Indiana Pacers spent January cementing themselves as an Eastern Conference contender. The New York Knicks spent the first month of the new decade showing it will take more than a calendar change to shake the play of the 2010s.

The Pacers will look to continue their push for a top-four playoff seed Saturday night, when they host the Knicks in the lone game of the season between the teams in Indiana.

Both teams will be playing for the first time since Wednesday, when the host Pacers outlasted the Chicago Bulls 115-106 in overtime and the Knicks fell to the visiting Memphis Grizzlies 127-106.

The victory for the Pacers was their eighth in 10 games and completed a 9-5 January as they moved from sixth to fifth in the Eastern Conference standings. Entering Friday, Indiana is a half-game ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers and 1 1/2 games behind the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat, who are tied for third place.

The Pacers could be further positioned for a surge now that Victor Oladipo is back on the court. Oladipo missed more than 12 months with a quad tendon that tore near the point where it attaches to his right knee. He returned to action Wednesday, when he scored nine points and forced overtime by draining a game-tying 3-pointer with nine seconds remaining.

Such a dramatic return should help with the delicate task of fitting the two-time All-Star back into the rotation for a team that's already established itself as playoff-caliber.

"The chemistry and all the things they've been working on the last few months, building, it starts over for us bringing Victor back," Pacers head coach Nate McMillan told reporters Tuesday. "Our strength in numbers has gotten us where we are. Now that we have a full roster, it should make us strong. It certainly can't be something that divides us."

The Knicks can only wish they were fine-tuning the details for a playoff push. A recent three-game winning streak at the start of the new year -- the franchise's longest since November 2018 -- indicated New York might be turning a corner toward respectability.

But the Knicks went 4-12 in January, a span in which they had five- and three-game losing streaks and endured five losses by at least 20 points. At 13-36, New York will enter Saturday tied for the worst record in the Eastern Conference and bound for the lottery for the seventh straight season.

The Knicks might have bottomed out Wednesday, when three players were ejected following a near-brawl in the final minute after Elfrid Payton shoved Jae Crowder. Payton's actions came after Crowder stole an in-bound pass and lofted a 3-pointer. Payton will serve a one-game suspension Saturday.

As officials debated over how to handle the fracas, the fans at Madison Square Garden filled the arena with chants of "Sell the team!" The vocal displeasure was aimed at Knicks owner James Dolan, who has presided over two trips beyond the first round of the playoffs in his two decades as the chairman of Madison Square Garden.

Following the game, Marcus Morris Sr. -- one of the players ejected -- described Crowder as someone who is "woman-like" and plays with "... a lot of female tendencies." Morris tweeted an apology shortly afterward, and apologized again following practice Friday.

--Field Level Media